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“SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1897-E1898 on Oct. 2, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS
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HON. DANA ROHRABACHER
of california
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, September 30, 1997
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, Wednesday evening, my colleague from California, Mr. Miller, resumed his nonstop, politically driven attack on the government and people of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The gentleman's remarks and accusations, along with those of Mrs. Mink and Ms. DeLauro are simply untrue and need to be corrected and clarified.
I respect and agree with their position that more Federal resources and efforts need to be directed to the Northern Mariana Islands to enforce the laws of which the Federal Government has jurisdiction. However, I believe their unwarranted attacks on the CNMI were misdirected, especially upon examination of the Federal law enforcement presence on the islands. In addition, I do not agree with their solution to increase the Federal law enforcement presence in the CNMI. When one takes into consideration that there are only two assistant U.S. attorneys on the islands--not to mention the fact that there is no U.S. attorney stationed on the islands--using American taxpayer dollars to increase funding for the Federal Victims' Assistance Program, as Mr. Miller and Mrs. Mink proposed, is bad public policy.
The Northern Mariana Islands, with very few exceptions, is governed by the laws of the United States of America. Both the U.S. citizens on the islands and the guest worker population reside under the protection of the U.S. flag and its Federal laws. For these reasons, the people of the Northern Mariana Islands willingly entered into a unique covenant with the United States in 1976. The people overwhelmingly voted to accept their self-government status, along with the responsibilities of being part of the American family. I am here to tell you that the CNMI Government and its people are living up to their responsibilities--they have established a self-reliant economy enabling the local government to fund its own operations without the assistance of Federal dollars through free enterprise; enforcement of local labor and immigration laws in the last 5 years has improved significantly and are continuing to be addressed stringently today; and the CNMI is promoting democratic values in Southeast Asia, where the American way of doing things is beginning to become the norm.
Unfortunately, the Federal Government is not fully living up to their Federal law enforcement responsibilities in the Northern Mariana Islands. The CNMI does not have authority to enforce U.S. laws. Enforcement of U.S. laws in the Commonwealth is the sole responsibility of the Federal Government. It is disingenuous for my colleagues to assert that the CNMI Government is not enforcing its local labor laws when the vast majority of alleged violations--nearly 90 percent--of labor laws in the CNMI are violations of Federal laws, which the U.S. Government has sole or concurrent jurisdiction. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, you can see why I am concerned with my colleague's, Mr. Miller, proposal to fund anything other than an additional assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern Mariana Islands.
I hope the chairman of the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations Committee, my good friend Mr. Rogers from Kentucky, will work to include language in the statement of the managers to direct some of the increased funds from the fiscal year 1997 bill to the U.S. attorney's office for the purpose of providing an additional Assistant U.S. attorney to be stationed in the Northern Mariana Islands.
At the request of Mr. Rogers, I agreed to address the allegations made regarding the CNMI at a later date due to the chairman's wishes to move forward with the bill. Had I had the opportunity to elaborate on the statement I presented in response to the attacks on the CNMI, I would have pointed out the fallacies in my colleagues' remarks.
Mr. Miller suggested that the guest workers on the island are routinely subjected to gross violations of their human rights and are provided few of the legal protections afforded to workers on American soil. He cited a Reader's Digest report and an Inside Edition expose done on the islands as documented evidence proving widespread abuses.
Let me reiterate that the CNMI Government has combated and continues to combat violations of their local laws. For example, in the case highlighted by the Reader's Digest involving the rape of a Chinese contract worker by former Immigration Officer Isidro Cabrerra, the CNMI Attorney General's Office has successfully prosecuted this unsavory individual. In addition, the CNMI's Department of Labor and Immigration's Administrative Hearing Office has eliminated its entire backlog of cases by conducting more than a thousand hearings over the past year. This has resulted in more than $2 million in payments to workers, the transfer of more than 1,000 workers to new employers, the deportation of 200 workers illegally employed in the CNMI, and the barring of 75 employers from hiring guest workers. Most recently, the CNMI Attorney General's office has facilitated the successful settlement of a civil action suit for the underpayment of garment worker wages totaling $996,000--the largest settlement ever collected by the office. These examples of enforcement and punishment of worker exploitation clearly do not reflect the picture painted by my colleagues who took the floor to chastise the CNMI Wednesday night.
In regard to the Inside Edition expose, Mr. Miller stated that this TV tabloid ``captured the horrific conditions in the Marianas on film''. With much interest, I viewed the expose the night it ran, and I am puzzled as to what it was my colleague witnessed that was so horrific. The program I watched did not document the widespread abuses that my colleague alleges. The hidden camera investigation I saw turned up CNMI garment factories that their own reporter described as ``clean and modern'' and ``beautiful''. Unable to find the ``sweatshops'' they were looking for, the Inside Edition investigative team turned its attention to the dormitory accommodations made available to the guest workers by their employers--inexpensive living accommodations where the workers freely chose to live in order to send home more of their earnings to their families. Although the dormitories may be considered by some to be crowded by mainland standards, they are comparable, and in many cases, superior to other housing in the South Pacific region. In fact, the living quarters I examined on my visit to the Northern Mariana Islands were much nicer than the barracks provided to the migrant workers on the mainland.
Mr. Speaker, it was also stated on the floor Wednesday evening that my defense of the Northern Mariana Islands in relation to the guest workers has no ``independent validation''. I take personal offense, as probably many of my colleagues do who have witnessed first hand the successes in the CNMI, to this remark and would like to set the record straight on this implication. Members and staff from both sides of the aisle, journalists and think tanks have traveled to the NMI to examine the Commonwealth. The Republicans and Democrats who have participated on these fact-finding delegations have come to admire and respect the CNMI during the past 2 years. In fact, the distinguished chairman of the Resources Committee, Mr. Young, has organized a CODEL to travel to the NMI and the other U.S. territories in January to address the concerns of the Congress and set the record straight. I strongly suggest that the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller]--who is the ranking member of the Resources Committee--join the chairman's delegation.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to address one final concern raised by my friend from Hawaii, Mrs. Mink. It is in regards to the 16-year-old girl in Hawaii now awaiting resolution of her complaint against a Filipino night club owner who hired her to dance nude in his club. Sadly, stories like this are reported all too often in the media today. Incidentally, the Washington Post just ran a similar story in late August about a Virginia man who pleaded guilty to the importation of teen prostitutes from Canada to work here on the streets of our Nation's Capital. Stories like this put the situation in the NMI in perspective. I know that my colleagues would agree that these abuses--
crimes--depicted in both of these stories are unacceptable. It is regrettable that in a great country like ours human beings can subject other humans to engage these type of behavior. The issue, however, is not that they occur but what is being done to prosecute the offenders and prevent this type of conduct in the future.
In all fairness to the CNMI, it should go on record that the statement made by my colleague is somewhat misleading. Mrs. Mink stated that this individual cannot obtain justice for the alleged crimes committed against her. According to the CNMI Attorney General, this is not true. The Federal officials are currently investigating the possible violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the CNMI Attorney General's office is continuing their ongoing investigation and will file charges once the Federal prosecutors have completed their case.
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